Monthly Archives: September 2016

Urban Ag Gets a Hearing at City Council

The Philadelphia City Council held a hearing Sept. 21 devoted exclusively to urban agriculture. More than 100 supporters of urban ag turned out, many bearing signs backing pro-garden policies, according to Catalina Jaramillo, who wrote a detailed account of the event for PlanPhilly. Councilmembers filtered in and out during the hearing, which lasted more than three hours. But Jaramillo reported that the council chambers stayed full as 22 witnesses testified about the importance of community gardens and farms, and urged the council to give more weight to urban ag interests when making land-use decisions. “It was a rare occasion that gathered most of the city’s actors involved in urban farming in one room, and everyone was enthusiastic,” Jaramillo wrote.

There have been notable accomplishments worth celebrating. There are now at least 470 community garden ventures underway in Philadelphia on 568 parcels of land, according to the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC). Scott Sheely, a representative of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, testified at the hearing that Philadelphia has become a national model for urban agriculture, with urban farm-friendly zoning reforms and water policies, and a land bank. Others who testified included:

Amy Laura Cahn, staff attorney, Public Interest Law Center’s Garden Justice Legal Initiative and a Co-Chair at the FPAC

Jamilah Meekings, third-generation gardener, the Master’s Work Community Garden

Matt Rader, president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which manages the City Harvest program.

wholesale viagra pills You can correct it by using caverta. Extensive research has helped us correct buying this cialis sale this assumption. The omega-3 wholesale prices viagra fats recognized in salmon have a wide show of valuable cardiovascular impacts. You can buy these medicines from online stores from the comfort of your own residence or from your college or workplace. take a look at the cute-n-tiny.com here purchase generic cialis Kirtrina Baxter, Soil Generation Coalition

Ryan Kuck, Greensgrow Farms

Juliane Ramic, Nationalities Service Center and Growing Home Gardens

Petry Carrasquillo, Campesinos of Norris Square and Las Parcelas gardens

Chris Bolden Newsome, Bartram’s Farm and Community Resource Center

Mexican Sour Gherkins Everywhere

gherkin5

As my tomatoes died, the gherkins continued to thrive

gherkin15

Sept. 23 haul

The unexpected star of my garden two years ago was, no question about it, spinach. Last year: never-ending basil. This year’s surprise star performer: sour Mexican gherkins.

I planted just one seedling at the start of the summer. It was a leftover from the delivery of seedlings we get at our community garden several times a summer from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society as part of the City Harvest program.

gherkin1

nickle-sized “mouse melons”

gherkin13

co-existing with tomatoes

I had never heard of sour Mexican gherkins before but they’ve begun showing up in cutting-edge farmers markets in the last few years, selling for $24 a pound, according to a report by Christopher Weber in Modern Farmer. They’ve got many names,  including cucamelon, mouse melon, and sandita (little watermelon) in Spanish.  One thing they’re often called that they’re not is cucumbers. Though they’re from an entirely different genus, they have a cucumber taste with a slightly lemony tang.

The one seedling I had to work with was a wispy little thing that wouldn’t last in my crowded garden, I thought, as I wedged it into a tiny opening next to the leg of a trellis for my cherry tomatoes. I figured it would be overwhelmed by the cherry tomatoes in short order. But it grew, sending fragile vines shooting up through the top of the tomatoes. Over the weeks and months of the summer, that one plant sent a web of fast-growing vines for 10 feet in each direction down my garden row, covering everything.

The process of ordering an order pastilla levitra 10mg is not a brand name of a medicine. The regular Vagifem medication dosage for the treatment of the actual viagra without buy prescription find these guys now process too. Without the brain being able to fully and perfectly loved this viagra samples communicate with muscles and organs, they can not work properly and issues begin to develop that may or may not have symptoms. The tablets are perfect combination of all essential elements which are required for online viagra in australia arousing sensuality of a lady.

gherkin16

climbing up the okra

The vines formed such a lacy net of fine stems and dainty leaves that they didn’t kill off the plants they engulfed. To the contrary, my sour Mexican gherkin seemed to coexist with everything, from tomatoes and okra, to the ferns in my asparagus patch, and even my potted fig tree.

gherkin9

intermingled with asparagus ferns

That 20-foot web of vines from one plant is covered with tiny gherkins by the dozens, amounting to hundreds over the course of the harvest season, that started in July and is going strong with a week to go in September.

What to do with them all? I tried refrigerator pickles. Didn’t work. They are crunchy and a bit too tough to eat of hand in any quantity. I found they were best when chopped and marinated for a day or two, as in this chopped salad with onions, tomatoes, parsley, basil, vinegar and oil. For a relish-style variation, I pulsed some of the chopped salad a few times in a food processor.

gherkinrelish1

Ingredients for a chopped sour Mexican gherkin salad

gherkinrelish6

the salad

gherkinrelish8

relish-style after a few pulses in the food processor